Guns and Nuts
by maedayblake
Summary: On the day of the hallucinogenic rations, Bellamy has a very unexpected situation on his hands while trying to teach Clarke to shoot. Oh, nuts. Bellarking in the bunker ensues. #bellarke (Note: To finish the progression of the episode, it gets a wee darker in chapter three.)
1. Guns

If he'd been allowed two minutes without bickering, Bellamy would have realized that something was off the moment the rations hit his tongue. If Clarke wasn't being Clarke with her morals and declarations and commands before they'd left camp, he could have packed better rations for the trip. But he had agreed to go with Clarke to cover his escape from the 100, so the ensuing situation was his own damn fault.

Without knowing the effects of the food were starting to take hold, Bellamy had assumed his need to be near Clarke was simply out of necessity. It was a safety precaution. If he'd let her try and shoot a gun in that bunker without some kind of guidance, she'd probably have erroneously murdered them both. After all, princesses generally weren't taught how to handle firearms back on the Ark. His was set to instruct her the way he'd been trained as a cadet: posture, breathing, focus. The only thing he hadn't accounted for was the fact that it was Clarke whom he was coaching.

"So, I just hold it to my shoulder?" Clark questioned, awkwardly adjusting the rifle. She hunched forward trying to hold up the weight of the gun. Bellamy stepped behind her bringing their bodies closer to adjust her form. "Yeah, a little higher." He placed his hand on her shoulder to help square her body to the target, and that's when he forgot how to breathe. The moment Bellamy made contact, his fingertips began tingling as if a current ran from Clarke's body to his. Clarke, seemingly unaffected, continued to try and focus on the target while Bellamy struggled to make sense of what the hell was happening to his hand. He stared at the curls trailing down Clarke's back for what seemed like an eternity, before collecting himself enough to move. Stepping away, he cleared his throat. "Yeah, uh, it's good."

Clarke continued to wiggle her body as she prepared to shoot, unknowingly drawing Bellamy's attention to her shifting hips. Bellamy's stomach muscles tightened as a million tantalizing thoughts flashed through his mind. He must have been blind to have not noticed her body before. _Wait, what?_ He gave his head a shake, derailing that train of thought, and grabbed his own rifle. He rudely crowded Clarke's space, effectively forcing her to move without any bodily contact. "Watch and learn," he said gruffly, trying to clear his mind of her presence. She stepped aside, waiting for the explosion of gun powder, only to be rewarded with a click and a grunt from Bellamy. He glanced at her, an annoyed expression on his face, before he looked at the gun, cocking it once more. He took aim again with the same result. Clarke smirked. "Still watching," she drawled.

Bellamy shrugged off the malfunction. "My bullets are duds. Try yours." He stepped back again to allow Clarke room to shoot, making sure to train his eyes on the target this time, and not her adjusting form.

She took a breath, squeezed the trigger, and was immediately knocked off balance by the gun's kickback. Bellamy caught her as she teetered backward against his chest, her laugh covering his gasp as her soft body sank back against his rigid form. She spun around, a smile on her face as she looked up. "That was amazing." Her breath caught.

Bellamy's face was a mask of tension. His dark eyes narrowed, taking on an unusual gleam. His jaw tightened. The hands that had stopped her fall, now contracted, drawing her forward. She became suddenly aware of the tingling sensation that was slowly working its way down her arms and chest, radiating from the places Bellamy's hands were gripping her shoulders. "Clarke…" He breathed her name, his voice rasping over her. She shivered and opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out. Bellamy leaned fractionally forward, trailing his hand down her arm to take her gun, and then propping it against the barrel next to them. She could feel the heat of his breath on his lips when that same hand grazed back up her arm to the spot where her neck and shoulder met. He applied gentle pressure, stroking his thumb down toward her collarbone.

"Bellamy, what-" Clarke swallowed as another shiver trembled through her.

His reply was strained, his voice gruff. "I'm going to kiss you, Princess. I- I can't explain why, but if you don't want me to, you need to go outside. Now." Confusion and desire warred in his expression.

Clarke was frozen in place as she glimpsed a rare moment of vulnerability in Bellamy's eyes. Later she would rationalize that it was the tingling sensation that had caused her temporary paralysis which was why she couldn't leave when Bellamy told her to. And why, instead of being a rational human being, she instead tilted her chin up so that her lips were a breath from his when she demanded, "So kiss me."

Neither the exploding of the bullet nor the kick back of the gun, could have prepared Clarke for the intensity of Bellamy Blake's kiss. Where she expected a mad clashing of lips and teeth and tongues, she was instead greeted with the breathtaking slide of his mouth against hers. He applied achingly slow pressure, unhurriedly coaxing her lips apart. She gasped as he sucked her bottom lip into his mouth and swept his tongue along the sensitive interior. She could hear his breath catching as he repeated the caress. When she thought she'd go mad with wanting, his deepened the kiss, tangling his fingers in her hair to angle her head. His tongue began a sensuous slide across her own, stroking into her mouth again and again until a moan ripped from her throat. And that guttural sound was what made Bellamy lose any sense of restraint.

His hands slid down to the backs of Clarke's thighs as he spun her and pressed her against the wall. In a frantic response, she wrapped her legs around his waist, drawing him closer, as her hands slid under the hem of his shirt to his stomach. He groaned low in his throat as her fingers glided across the smooth, hot skin there pulled taut over his clenching muscles. He rocked against her once, twice and tore his mouth from hers to bury his face in her neck. "Bell," she moaned and slid her fingers into his curls. His mouth was doing delicious things to her, causing her to arch and press their bodies closer. He rocked against her again more insistently and gasped against her mouth, "God, Clarke." He delved back down for another kiss, sliding his hand down her body to pull her closer. He nipped her bottom lip when her mouth suddenly released his. She yanked her head back against the wall, panting. They stared at each other with glazed eyes.

As if suddenly coming back to her own body, Clarke stiffened in his arms pressing back against his shoulders. "Bellamy!" His eyes widened and then darkened as he fully realized the very intimate position they were in. His fingers flexed low on her body and she sputtered. "We— You and I—" she gasped, "We can't do this. We can't- For god's sake, Bellamy, put me down!"

Her tone snapped Bellamy back to sanity, and he nearly dropped Clarke in his haste to disentangle himself from her.

She huffed, trying to tidy her slightly disheveled appearance. He turned his back to her willing his blood to stop pumping vigorously. Willing his now rather tight pants to loosen up even as her voice reached out to him. "What the hell was that?"

"You're asking me?" He fairly shouted over his shoulder. He suddenly had a very vested interest in straightening the cuffs of his jacket. "It's not like I planned this, Princess."

"Oh, I'm sure," she spat back. "Because you've never done anything like this with all the other girls from the ship, celibate soul that you are." Her words dripped with sarcasm.

He spun back to face her, pointing. "Trust me, if I'd had any control of that situation, it would never have happened. Ever." The blatant lie tasted foul in his mouth, but he pressed on. "Whatever that was, it was a one time thing, Princess."

"Damn right it was!" Clarke exclaimed, despite the fact that his rejection made her eyes sting.

He saw the change in her expression. Had he offended her?He decided to err on the side of arrogance over sensitivity. "I find it comical," he said with forced smugness, "That you're suddenly so indignant, when not two minutes ago, you were moaning my name and practically disrobing me!"

"I was not!"

"Ohhhh, Princess, you definitely were. You—" He stopped suddenly as the room began to tilt. He shook his head trying to clear the dizziness and only made it worse. "Princess?" His voice sounded oddly far away, echoing in his head. When he looked up at Clarke, her face twisted and swirled. He staggered once and fell to his knees.

"Bellamy, that's not funny," she said, uncertainty lacing her tone. She stepped toward him. "You're still… still… in trouble. Whoa." She blinked rapidly looking around the room. "Why… are the walls… melting?" The words tasted like bits of dust on her tongue. Clarke watched Bellamy topple to the ground. She bent to assess him, but instead ended up sprawled on the ground next to him, her hand reaching. Bellamy's voice groaned her name, but the sound somehow dripped from the ceiling instead of reaching her ears. The world began to tingle and swirl, and just before it disappeared completely, she felt his fingertips graze hers.


	2. Nuts

Bellamy awoke with a pounding headache. He shivered and swept his hand around the hard pallet of his bed to find a blanket. Instead, his fingertips brushed against a soft, pleasantly warm female form. He smiled to himself and scooted closer, drawing the sleeping girl's back to his chest. Not a bad way to beat a hangover, waking up next to… next to… _what the hell was her name_? He groaned. He really needed to drink less. What's-her-name sighed and pressed her hips back against him, settling herself more fully into his body. He smirked, sliding his hand around her waist. No, not at all a bad way to wake up. He buried his face in her hair inhaling deeply the smell of gun powder. _Gun powder_? He cracked an eye open and was greeted with a cascade of golden curls. He yanked is head back, eyes wide open now.

No. _No_. It couldn't be. Clarke Griffin was _not_ in his bed right now. Absolutely no way. He scrunched his eyes closed again, willing her disappearance, but when he opened them, she was still there. Every soft, supple inch of her damn beautiful body. He made a choking sound as his own body began to stir with a powerful need. And then it all came back to him: the bunker, eating the nuts, teaching Clarke to shoot, kissing Clarke senseless, wanting to do _more_ than kiss Clarke senseless, and the inevitable fighting that resulted before he collapsed. He groaned again.

Of course, Clarke chose that exact moment to roll over in his arms aligning their faces, mouths almost touching. Bellamy held a fearful breath as she began to wake up. Her eyelids fluttered open as she stretched. Her gaze focused on his face with a sleepy smile. And then she began screaming outright, shoving him back and away from her. They shot across the room in opposite directions.

Bellamy clutched his pounding head. "God, Clarke, it's me! Tone it down! It's not like I'm a grounder."

She blinked rapidly, pushing her hair out of her face, trying to focus. "Why was I sleeping with you?" Clark demanded. Bellamy snorted. " _Next_ to you!" She fairly shouted. "Why was I sleeping _next to_ you?"

 _Oh, this was too easy._ "Come on, Princess, you don't remember our night of passionate love-mak-"

"No! I would never. The last thing I remember is- is…" Clarke blushed furiously as she suddenly _did_ remember, and the reality of the situation wasn't as far from Bellamy's taunting as she would have liked.

He greatly enjoyed her discomfort. "I guess 'never' is a pretty strong word, eh, Princess?" A grin split his face.

"Oh, stop it, Bellamy. This isn't funny. What really happened?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. We got to the bunker. We ate…" And then it occurred to him. "Oh, nuts."

She stared at him, one eyebrow raised, waiting for further explanation. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Nuts." She blinked again. He drew the sound out obnoxiously slow as if teaching her a new word. "Nuuuuuts. Nuts."

"You keep saying that like it means something."

"Because nuts."

"Stop saying 'nuts'!"

Bellamy rolled his eyes. "Hallucinogenic nuts, Clarke. The rations we brought. There was something off about those nuts. I think it caused us to… lower our inhibitions." He cleared his throat, looking down at his lap and then swiftly up to the ceiling. "So when we, you know... And you were mo-" She glared at him. He swallowed. "Right. Yes. So... it was because… nuts," he finished lamely.

"Okay, nuts. I mean, good! I mean, that makes sense." Clarke stuttered. There was a beat as they made eye contact again. _Nope._ She stood suddenly, vigorously brushing the dirt from her pants. "So, we'll just—"

"Never ever talk about this again."

"Yup."

"Good."

"Great." Clarke rocked back on her heels. "So... guns?"


	3. Friends

Clarke didn't know how she'd gone from enjoying Bellamy's… company (and seemingly trying to devour his face), to being in the middle of a bloody battle in the forest. It was all a blur. One moment she was trailing behind trying not to relive the regrettable kissing incident, and the next, Bellamy was being knocked to the ground 20 feet ahead of her by a figure that had materialized from the woods.

Bellamy frantically searched for a weapon, but they'd all been tossed away by the man she now recognized as Dax, one of the 100. Clarke hid herself amongst the foliage reaching for a gun as she watched the assailant point his rifle at Bellamy's shaking form. Bile rose in her throat. Her heart had pounded like a war drum beckoning her to fight. Unfortunately, as it turned out, she was somehow worse at firing a gun sober than she had been while on hallucinogens.

Without thought, she took up the stance Bellamy had taught her and pulled the trigger. Nothing. Dax opened fire as she scrambled to shield herself behind a tree. She heard Bellamy yell followed by the sound of bodies hitting hard ground. Forgetting her own safety, she rushed out to help. She threw herself into the fray, only to be knocked back again by Dax with a hard blow to the stomach. Air exploded from her lungs. Through the spots winking in and out of her vision, she watched Dax use the rifle to strike Bellamy in the face. She tried to get up, but all she could do was gasp and silently urge Bellamy to keep fighting. Fear welled up in her throat as she watched the two mean struggle.

In the end, Bellamy was left with no other option but to kill or be killed. He grabbed a stray bullet casing in hand and lashed out at Dax, landing a fatal blow, the shock of the subsequent action etched on his face.

He scrambled away from Dax's body as Clarke crawled back toward the tree, and when they met there, his hand clutched Clarke's knee for a moment as if to assure himself she was really there, really alive. Knowing Bellamy was already beginning to crumble, she gasped, "You're okay," trying to lend him the same modicum of comfort. But he wouldn't be comforted.

"No, I'm not," he stated harshly.

Clarke froze at the sound of despair in Bellamy's voice.

"My mother…" he choked out. "If she knew what I'd done, who I am… She raised me to be better. To be good."

"Bellamy," Clarke tried, but he cut her off without hearing.

"All I do is hurt people." He sniffed, a single tear falling from his eyes as he shook his head in disgust. "I'm a monster."

The deplorable things they had done since landing had kept them alive, but Clarke understood his guilt. She wouldn't allow him to wallow in that. "Hey, you saved my life today." She clutched her sore stomach and shifted to a sitting position. "And you may be a total ass half the time," she tried to tease, "But… I need you." The truth of the words hit her, and for a split second, their gazes locked. Despite the pain and shock she saw in his eyes, there was also a glimmer of hope. She clung to that and pushed on. "We _all_ need you. None of us would have survived this place if it wasn't for you." Bellamy looked away, unable to ignore the loathing seeping from every cell of his body.

Clarke continued. "If you need forgiveness, fine. I'll give it to you. You're forgiven, okay?" He looked up, still unable to hold her gaze. "But you can't run," she insisted gently. If he ran, she would have no one. "You have to come back with me. You have to face it."

Bellamy sat silently processing Clarke's speech. How ironic that the princess would command him to face his actions, considering her own situation. Bellamy knew it was bad form, but right now, he was in no place to censor his thoughts. "Like you faced your mom?"

Now, it was Clarke's turn to look away. It was true. They were both running from something, fearful of what they'd really see if they looked hard enough. Clarke huffed. "You're right. I don't want to face my mom. I don't want to face any of it." And her voice broke at that thought, drawing his attention to her pained expression. Leading the 100 had been thrust upon them. How could she possibly continue to bear the responsibilities of the drop ship if he left? Her gaze met his. "All I can think about every day is how we're going to keep everyone alive. But we don't have a choice." He sniffed again. Bellamy knew what Clarke wanted, but he was too broken to give her the validation she sought. All he had were his own swirling judgements and fears. Fear was the reason he had even taken this trip.

"Jaha will kill me when he comes down," he stated blankly. And to that, Clarke immediately shook her head, unwilling to let him give up.

"We will figure something out," she said insistently.

Bellamy knew she was trying to assure him, her Pollyanna positivity was too much right now with both of them injured and a corpse at their feet. He could only scoff at her promise.

His tone was haggard and laced with irony. "Can we figure it out later?"

It was something her Bellamy would say. Her Bellamy. Wait, no. Not _her_ Bellamy. Just Bellamy. Regardless, the fact that he seemed to be calming down, using that sardonic tone of voice, would be enough for now. He'd come back with her. They'd continue on for another day. Another fight.

Clarke gave in to the slow ache that had been continuously rolling through her since the fight. With a great sigh, she scooted her back against the tree next to him and lent him the last bit of compassion she had left. "Whenever you're ready."

Later, they would talk on the way back to camp, formulating a plan to save Bellamy from death. Clarke would champion him to Jaha, and Bellamy would reveal the conspiracy on the Ark.

Even later, Clarke would defend Bellamy, the most combative man she'd ever met, to Finn, the man she might love. Much to Finn's disgust, she would proclaim her trust in Bellamy.

And much, much later, as she finally drifted toward sleep, it would occur to Clarke that despite everything they'd been through since landing, today was the first time she had really seen Bellamy Blake. She had wanted him, fought for him, comforted him, and believed in him. And, he had done the same for her.

As the last dregs of consciousness drifted away, Clarke jolted at her final, coherent thought: Bellamy Blake was quickly becoming the most important person in her life. He might even be her friend.


End file.
